Coming 360
The Causes & Consequences of WhiteCollar Crime in Relation to Societal Racism
An Argumentative Report
By Kelsey Mazibuko
24904996
ProfCom 144 (2024)
Table of Contents
COVER PAGE.......................................................................................................................................................... 1
DESCRIPTION PAGE...............................................................................................................................................2
TABLE OF CONTENT...............................................................................................................................................3
INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................................... 4
CONCEPTUALISATION .................................................................................................................. 4
CAUSES OF WHITE-COLLAR CRIME ............................................................................................... 4
SYSTEMIC INEQUALITY ........................................................................................................................... 4
SOCIETAL PERCEPTIONS ........................................................................................................................ 5
CONSEQUENCES OF WHITE-COLLAR CRIME ................................................................................. 7
INSTITUTIONAL MISCONDUCT.................................................................................................................. 7
COUNTERARGUMENT ................................................................................................................... 7
REBUTTAL .................................................................................................................................... 7
CONCLUSION .............................................................................................................................. 9
BIBLIOGRAPHY .......................................................................................................................... 10
Introduction
White collar crime can be defined as "white by default" due to systemic exclusion and
marginalisation of non-whites in environments with financial, political and economic
influence. The term refers to a style of crime that requires access to material and social
resources that exploits those sources and expedites the allocation of these resources
for personal gain at the detriment of societal welfare (Geis, G. 1991). This report aims
to explore the causes of white-collar crime and its continuous perpetuation of white
participation. The expansion of the report will be guided through the arguments of
system inequality, societal perceptions and institutional misconduct.
Conceptualisation
The term “white-collar crime” was conceived by Edwin H. Sutherland in his article
‘White-Collar Criminality’ where it was highlighted that criminal activity executed by
respect businesses and professional men was overlooked by society and authorities.
(Sutherland, 1940.) Sutherland’s article was published over 80 years ago and many
of his insights hold true to today however he could not account for the scalability that
white-collar crimes could expand to with the introduction of the internet, digitalised
banking and growth in globalized economies. Suddenly the effect of this type of
offence is no longer restricted by geographical bounds and the conversation of ethical
conflict is debated across nations and cultures.
Causes of White-Collar Crime
Systemic Inequality
Access to higher quality education, better living standards and higher income received
from higher paying positions are all social norms experienced by a predominantly
white demographic. Tools such as generational wealth open opportunities to larger
pools of credit and at more favourable interest rates (Sohoni & Rorie, 2021) allow for
the planting of seeds in large scale swindle schemes like pyramid schemes simply
because of trusted and guaranteed flow of money that is not easily granted to nonwhite counterparts. Building on this argument, one will see how social perceptions
further enable opportunities for white-collar crime.
Societal Perceptions
The societal image of criminal is socially conditioned to reflect a portrait of violence
and immorality with non-whites at the helm of the paint brush (Zaloznaya, Yakes &
Wo, 2023). The investigating and persecuting efforts of white-collar crimes is lenient
because of two reasons: Firstly, the act of a non-violent crime is not treated with a
sense of urgency since its effects are a tidal pool of subsequent events; Secondly the
main culprits are from wealthy, family oriented white backgrounds that do not match
the description of violence and immoral that society has been conditioned to consider
dangerous. In a survey conducted by Thomas E. Dearden, it was found that 74 percent
(%) of responders consider white-collar crime as a crucial issue (Dearden, 2017). 74
percent of those respondents are discontented with the current legislative handling of
cases whilst the reminder of the respondents that more conservative or reflect similar
lifestyles to white-collar crime offenders expressed that white-collar crime is not a
pressing societal issue. See Figure 1 illustrating the proportion of responses.
26
74
Those that Agree That White Collar Crime is A Crucial Societal Issue
Those that Do Not Agree That White Collar Crime is A Crucial Societal Issue
FIGURE 1 - Percentage of Responders (%)
(Dearden, 2017).
A distorted portrait of archetypal crime and offenders created from a lack of systemic
data on business misconduct and wrong doings. In the context of American society,
most records to date have often compared the faces of minority criminals to law
abiding white citizens resulting in an overestimation in the number of black citizens
committing crimes and receive more severe sentencing. If crime committed by
businesses was more accurately captured the portrait would reflect more white
perpetrators than it does non-white offenders. A study showed that white survey
respondents overestimated the proportion of crime committed by African Americans
by 20-30%. (Simpson, 2019) See Figure 2 illustrating the proportion of responses in
comparison to actual crimes recorded.
Adjusted & Reevaluated Data
Responders Perceiption
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
Arbitary Scaling of The Percentage of Crimes Commited
FIGURE 2 - The Reflections of Responders vs. Systemic Data on Offences
(Simpson, 2019)
The catalysing instances of systemic inequality and misconstrued societal perceptions
lead to tangible consequences like institutional misconduct.
Consequences of White-Collar Crime
Institutional Misconduct
The poor enforcement of regulatory bodies and lack of firm disciplinary procedures
creates an incentivising environment for opportunities of exploitation.
Poorly worded or established laws may leave room for offenders to execute harmful
acts without having technically infringing on the stipulations (Sohoni & Rorie, 2021).
There is a correlation between institutional misconduct, race and class and this is often
demonstrated through the lack of enforced accountability and repercussions
(Zaloznaya, Yakes & Wo, 2023). An institution’s commitment to transparency and
ethical practices are fundamentals of prevention. If the narrative of ethics and
transparency is misconstrued in the workplace culture, this links directly to the creation
of opportunistic windows.
Counterargument
One may take the stance of stating that white-collar crime is not linearly correlated to
racism, suggesting that individual offenders are motivated by opportunity and socioeconomic gain instead of ethical or racial factors. The socioeconomic standing of a
person is driving force of motivation, diminishing the impact of race quantitively has
when participating in white-collar criminal behaviour. Anybody could be an offender if
presented with the right tools and circumstances.
Rebuttal
While it is important to acknowledge the significance that economic motivators and
opportunities have – It is equally important to consider the foundation on which those
opportunities arise from – namely systemic racism and marginalization of access to
said opportunities. South African’s historical frameworks serve as tangible examples
of this exclusion of economic participation from the non-white demographic (Muto &
Price, 2019). The nature of white-collar crime suggests that an individual must be in a
position of power to take advantage of institutional and legislative grey areas and
loopholes.
Legislation such as BBBEE aims to create a more equitable economic plane by
enforcing that businesses are required to have their employee and leadership consist
of certain racial proportions (Republic of South Africa, 2003). This specific act was only
introduced in the mid-2000s meaning that many private companies and closed
cooperations at the time did not have to comply with the leadership element of this Act
due to the expensive and time-extensive nature of changing directors or the
dissolvement of businesses. Alluding to the point that those who cannot participate,
cannot abuse opportunities due to no access.
In Muto and Price’s 2019 paper, the found that certain responders suggested that their
race was a consideration when deciding to go forth with white-collar crime. It
suggested that people were more reluctant to steal from members of their shared race.
One could deduce that if most of the big Fortune 500 companies in South Africa had
predominantly black leadership on their boards, there would be a considerable
decrease in white-collar crime given that 80% of South Africa’s population is blackAfrican.
Conclusion
White-collar crime is not individualistic in nature. It is the deeply integrated and woven
connection of systemic loopholes and timing of opportunistic people who use the
framing of societal outlooks to extend those windows of opportunity for as long as
possible until social welfare deterrents to a point that is too blatant to ignore.
Systemic inequality favours a predominately white audience gives way to access to
large pools of funding and adequate higher education acting as a significant cause of
white-collar crime. The lack of systemic data on corporate misconduct has caused
distortions on what is considered white-collar crime and faces of culprits. The lack of
applied regulations and framework guidance provides environments filled with
exploitation and windows of opportunities for self-gain and manifests as institutional
misconduct.
Systemic inequality, social perceptions and institutional misconduct in combination
provide the platform to execute white-collar crimes with white privilege acting as the
catalyst and preserver.
Bibliography
Dearden, T.E. 2017. An assessment of adults’ views on white-collar crime. Journal of
financial crime. 24(2):309–321. DOI: 10.1108/JFC-05-2016-0040.
Geis, G. 1991. White-Collar Crime: What Is It? Current issues in criminal justice.
3(1):9–24. DOI: 10.1080/10345329.1991.12036504.
Muto, L. & Price, G. 2019. An offenderâ€TMs perspective of what motivates and deters
white-collar criminals in the South African workplace. African journal of employee
relations. 38(2):90–102. DOI: 10.25159/2664-3731/5894.
Republic of South Africa. 2003. Broad-based Black Economic Empowerment Act 53
of 2003. Pretoria: Government Printer.
Simpson, S.S. 2019. Reimagining Sutherland 80 years after white-collar crime.
Criminology (Beverly Hills). 57(2):189–207. DOI: 10.1111/1745-9125.12206.
Sohoni, T. & Rorie, M. 2021. The whiteness of white-collar crime in the United States:
Examining the role of race in a culture of elite white-collar offending. Theoretical
criminology. 25(1):66–87. DOI: 10.1177/1362480619864312.
Sutherland, E.H. 1940. White-Collar Criminality. American sociological review. 5(1):1–
12. DOI: 10.2307/2083937.
Zaloznaya, M., Yakes, A. & Wo, J. 2023. Is White-Collar Crime White? Racialization in
the National Press Coverage of White-Collar Crime from 1950 to 2010. Law & social
inquiry. 48(4):1117–1137. DOI: 10.1017/lsi.2023.2.